Poor door opens to opportunity

It's been castigated by columnists, mocked by Stephen Colbert and called an outrageous insult by just about everyone, from housing advocates to liberals to politicians of all stripes.

And while I lack the elitist sensibility to outright praise the poor door — I'm not Marie Antoinette, after all — it needs some perspective.

Last month, New York City approved plans for a high-rise building in Manhattan that will contain more than 150 luxury, market-rate apartments. The developer also plans to add 55 "affordable units" through the city's inclusionary housing program. Of course, "affordable housing" is different in Manhattan than on planet Earth; there, small families earning up to $51,000 a year would qualify.

Mixed-rate housing isn't new, in New York or elsewhere. Luxury builders are enticed with various perks to include subsidized units in their developments, to help ease the squeeze for low-income folks. Nothing radical there. It's a good thing for communities.

But this complex will have two separate entrances — one for the luxury dwellers who face the river, the other for the low-income residents who face the street.

Cue the collective outrage. Quickly dubbed the "poor door," the latter entrance has been called Dickensian, offensive and even racist. Critics harken images of poor, coal-stained wretches skulking through the servant's entrance in the basement so the rich denizens are spared the horror of glancing upon their working-class countenance. City leaders are vowing to fix whatever loophole made the poor door possible.

I understand the hand-wringing tendency. Americans love to believe that we're a classless society and hate reminders that we're actually not. Even as we're extending our toes in nail salons while women on their knees can paint and polish, we cling to our illusions of equality.

So we wince at the notion of a poor door, even though poor doors open everywhere. On a small scale, try buying a lawn seat to a concert and crashing the VIP entrance. On your next flight, pay for coach and attempt to plunk your butt down in first class. Closer to home, I've eaten at Tatnuck Country Club, but only as a guest. I can't afford the membership fees, so I can't walk through the door unescorted. Bummer for me.

We are a nation of rich doors and poor doors. The rich have better access to education and medical care. When they get into trouble, they can hire the best lawyers. They eat better and sleep better on high thread-count sheets.

This is why we all want to be rich. It's not rocket science. But an actual door for the 1 percent is a stark symbol of what we know to be true, so it makes us cringe.

Meanwhile, the value of mixed-income neighborhoods is measurable. It elevates low-income families and helps alleviate segregation and concentrated poverty. Lower-income parents have better access to good schools and more opportunities.

The Manhattan builder, Extell Development, has said it has to create separate doors because the affordable units are in a legally separate unit, not because the rich should be immune from the poor.

And here's the thing. If I wanted to live in Manhattan and was offered an affordable condo on the Upper West Side, I'd crawl in through the flipping window.

The luxury complex proposed for 40 Riverside Drive is hardly Downton Abbey revisited. And this is just a guess, but I'm betting that the future tenants of modest means would like to close the door on all this segregationist talk, so they can open the door to a better future for their families.